21. Alira
Alira
I only walk maybe twenty feet away from the village, but when I turn around, everything is gone. A mist thicker than a cloud has swept in, and I have no idea where I am. Panic sinks into my chest, making it hard to breathe. The tips of my fingers start to numb.
What the hell is happening? My pulse races.
My steps are hesitant, and the visibility is low. It only takes a handful of them before I’m staring up at a foreboding crystal cave. It’s not bright here, like it was in the village. The mist makes the cave look glum, and the crystals don’t shine as they should.
It seems foolish to go inside, but the mist feels like a worse option.
I mean, this is Mortem, after all. I can only assume that we have nothing to fear down here.
We are dead, or in between. I was led here for a reason, and the village didn’t just disappear.
I wonder if there is someone inside I’m meant to speak with.
Cold air sweeps out around my ankles as I get farther in.
Dripping sounds echo through the cave, bouncing off the walls as if there’s nothing else in here to absorb it.
I move forward with caution, but it seems that there’s nothing in here to be afraid of; the cave just seems to go on and on until I reach an old wooden door that seems to be the end of the tunnel. I carefully open it and peek inside.
At the center of the room is a giant cauldron bubbling with a dark liquid that seems to absorb light. The black flames beneath it flicker with an otherworldly glow, casting eerie shadows across the cave.
Chills move up my arms, and I feel them before I see them. The Fates.
They are chilling beings to look upon. They resemble humans, but their skin is much grayer, and they hide things about themselves. One covers its mouth, the other its eyes, and the last its ears.
How my mother ever faced them, I will never know.
“Alira, daughter of Venus. It has been too long, and yet hardly any time has passed.” They speak all at once as if they are of one mind.
I stand firmly, knowing that they will not harm me, but they still make me uncomfortable.
“Why did you give my mother what she wanted all those years ago? Why did you change my path?” I hate how pitiful I sound, but I genuinely want to know. It doesn’t seem like they’re willing to change fate so easily. Which begs the question: What did it cost her?
They walk around the cauldron in unison, grabbing a ladle and stirring it.
“I’m not surprised that you are afraid of us.
Most people are, but not Venus. We helped her because the goddess of love wanted nothing except your safety and your happiness.
Tell me, godling, have you had happiness in your short life? ”
I stare at them, wanting to say no, but I pause and think about it more.
I have had a better life than many. There are so many others who have suffered so much worse than I have, and I think back to all the times that I did laugh in my kingdom with the knights I grew up with and my friend Korin.
The years I spent training as a knight and the bonds I made with my comrades.
The things I got to experience, even when I left my kingdom too.
The realization that demons are not so different from us and have kindness and customs that I’ve never known.
They live in ways that I wish all of Faultore could see for their beauty.
“Yes,” I say with a reminiscent smile, pulling at my lips.
They regard me quietly. “Then why have you ended up here?”
I narrow my eyes at them. They know very well why. They’ve likely been watching me for a very long time, knowing the meaning of each step I took.
“Shouldn’t you be the ones telling me? How do we get out of here? How do we stop the war?” I say more sternly. I’d rather just get to the point. I know better than to expect straight answers from the Fates; they seem to prefer their tricks and riddles.
“This war has been in the making since the demigods and demons were created. The fighting will continue until a sacrifice made purely out of love has been offered.”
“A sacrifice out of love? But what do you mean? In what way?”
They look at me for a moment, studying the desperation in my eyes, then glance down at the cauldron. The black liquid pops, and a few drops spill onto the cave floor. “You will know when the time comes.”
How will I know? Do they mean as in sacrificing myself? Or Kalel? It feels as if a sword has pierced my heart again.
“Do you mean that one of us must die?” My voice weaves between them, but they only smile ominously.
The Fate covering its mouth approaches me and reaches into its cloak pocket before extending its hand to me, holding something.
I hadn’t realized how much larger the Fate was than me before, but now that it’s standing here, it’s intimidating.
The skin is damp and wrinkled as it lifts the item to me.
It’s something wrapped in old torn cloth. I take it from its hand and flinch when I realize it feels like a dagger of some sort.
“We brought you here to give you this.” Their voice curls around me and makes my stomach churn.
I swallow uneasily and start to unwrap the dagger. Sweat breaks out over my brow when I see that it’s my mother’s knife. It’s the only thing she left for me when she delivered me to Alzhor.
“My mother’s dagger?” I say slowly, glancing back up at them. “What do you intend for me to do with this?”
The other Fates approach me as the one covering its mouth had. “It is not hers, but ours. You will need this when you find your way back to make the sacrifice.”
I open my mouth a few times, but nothing comes out. I’m floored and nervous. “I have to kill someone with this?”
They stare at me with hollow eyes. “It must be written in gilded blood.”
Those words again. My spine stiffens, and I feel like I can’t breathe. “This is how you change a fate,” I whisper. They all give a gradual nod.
I turn to look at the dagger in a better light from the wall sconces at the head of the tunnel.
“But…” I mutter as I slowly look over my shoulder back at them and come face-to-face with the wall of the cave. The room is gone and so are the Fates, the cauldron, everything.
Everything but the dagger in my hand.
My feet are heavy as I walk back down the way I came.
I quickly leave the cave and come out, surprised to see that the mist has lifted, but there’s still no village.
Instead, ahead of me is just a wasteland.
It looks like a bog with tall dark trees jutting out from mud pools.
Root systems that have long gone overgrown and twist through the moss-covered paths that weave between water and bark.
Where am I now?
My gut twists, hopelessness seeping in as I take in the abandoned scape.
I’m lost.